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The Riley Gaines Show
Michael Knowles: “The Right Is Starting to Fracture” | The Riley Gaines Show
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What does the Pope vultures in the podcast fear and aliens all have in common? All things we're talking about on today's episode of the Riley Gaines show with Michael Knowles. Well Michael, thank you for joining the Riley Gaines Show. I want to talk about some of the culture stuff in a minute and the shifts that we are seeing there. But actually one of the biggest shifts that we're seeing right now is happening in religion. There's study after study pertaining to really the general public as a whole, but I think most specifically and most importantly a rise in younger people, my generation, Gen Z, attending church, especially young men. Can you talk about this returning to faith, but I think even more specifically, kind of the convert to Catholicism?
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A
Yes, the Catholics have really been great beneficiaries of this return to the faith. I think adult conversions in the US specifically to Catholicism are are up 38% year over year this year. And that's after last year which saw similar numbers increase. So why is it? The reason that there's a return to religion generally is because one, the fall away from religion marked by the new atheism was totally fake. The new atheism was a hoax. It was a response to 911 when Muslims committed terror attacks and the so called new atheists of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett. They pulled a sleight of hand. They said that the problems that are evident in Islam are therefore representative of all religion. And they really used it as a way to attack Christianity. Which is ironic because I don't think Christians flew planes into airplanes into buildings rather so it was always kind of fake. Christopher Hitchens wrote this famous book God is Not Great. I remember reading that book as a boy and it occurred to me that he doesn't even argue that God is not great. It's not really an argument against God or it's an argument I don't know of an assemblage of Reddit tier atheist complaints about religious people. So he didn't. He didn't.
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his thesis he didn't really even argue his thesis. And the fact is, man is a religious being. We have a God shaped hole in our heart. There is a reason that all societies, for all of history everywhere, have grappled with religious questions. You're not going to erase that with some pithy slogan uttered by Christopher Hitchens on a cable news hit. But that's why people just realized, okay, this atheist stuff is just D. So, okay, why Catholicism? This pertains to what we were just talking to, talking about earlier on transgenderism. Because the transgender claim really boiled down, basically, is that my body has nothing to do with who I really am. So you can have beautiful Riley Gaines there, nice long hair, all sorts of feminine features, but contrary to all physical appearance, she might really be a boy. We know that that isn't true. But what does that say about how we're even thinking of the question? It says that we don't recognize the relation of our immaterial selves, our soul, our spirit to our body. But we're both of those things. We're what Aristotle called a hylomorphic being, an immaterial part, but also a material part. The angels are just immaterial. I don't know. My Tumblr here, my microphone is just material. It's no rational soul to it. But we are, weirdly, a combination of these two things. So many religious traditions, especially some of the more evangelical or low church Protestant traditions, they get that God exists. They get that Jesus is who he says he is. They get that we have to live our life in community and be aware of God and read our Bible and all the rest. But one thing that they lack, which the more mainline Protestant churches have to some degree, though they've declined for other reasons that Eastern Orthodoxy has, and that especially Catholicism has, is. Is a recognition that we are physical beings. And being physical beings, we need to do something with our bodies. So a liturgical tradition, the Mass where you get up and you kneel down and you pray and you put your hands together, that rather than being vain or trivial, that simply acknowledges a part of our nature which is that we are bodies moving in time and space. And then at the extreme of that, you have sacramental theology which, again, lots of Protestant traditions have, but the Catholics really, really emphasize. And it's the idea that. Well, to use the example of the Blessed Sacrament, that there is this host which, when it is consecrated by the priest, becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus, contrary to appearances in most cases, because there actually are eucharistic miracles, but in most cases just looks like a host. But Christians believe, Catholics believe at least, that this is the real body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. And this goes all the way back to the early Church. Justin Martyr is writing about this in the First Apology, really, all the Church fathers, and then later the doctors of the Church are writing about this, and they say this is really confusing to people who are not Christian because they think it's just bread and you eat it as a kind of symbol. But we say that it's really Christ. Why? Why does it matter? You know, I think a lot of people would say, look, if I think it's a symbol or I think it's really Christ, or, you know, in the end, it doesn't really matter. I think the reason that young people, especially right now, think it does matter is because human beings, being physical and immaterial, need a regular encounter where the two meet. And that's what a sacrament promises. A sacrament says there is this place in the world where the divine is encountering the terrestrial, where the metaphysical is encountering the physical, and there's actually a union of those two things. And the reason why human beings long for that, I mean, obviously, I think that's real for all sorts of reasons coming from Scripture and the history of Christianity. But the reason that human beings naturally long for that is because we're kind of like that, too. You know, what the modern materialist secularists describe as the tragic nature of humanity? The fact that we're born and we can perceive universals and we know that there's justice, and we long for eternal life, but we know we're going to die. They view as the real tragedy of humanity, this kind of joke played upon us. But it doesn't need to be a tragedy. This is, in fact, what our Lord is addressing. He says, if you believe in me, you can have eternal life. So getting the body back into it is so important. It's not just the transgenderists who need this thing. We all live in a way that is mediated much of the time by virtual reality. You and I are speaking right now through a screen because, I mean, actually we do live pretty close to each other. But, you know, people are on the road, people are traveling, so we're meeting that way. And I get. I get a fair bit of Riley when I'm looking through the screen, but I'm not getting the full Riley. You know, we're not sitting down, having a meal or something like that. And we live our lives this way with our families, with our co workers. You know, people have their meetings on computers now. In fact, in many cases, we view our social media avatars, our Instagram account, our Twitter account as our real identity. But of course, that's missing out on so much of us. And the. The final piece of this, I think, as to why this is all happening now is because we've just emerged from COVID five years ago in which we took this to an extreme. We were told you actually don't need any physical existence. You can have holidays over zoom. You can work from your home, you can order food to come to your door. You don't even need to go grocery shopping anymore. You certainly shouldn't go to church. We're gonna lock down everything. You're not gonna travel. And that is simply inhuman. That is contrary to the way that we are, because I still do have blood pumping through my veins. And I was born at a particular date, I'm going to die at a particular date. I don't know when it is. But the physical temporal world is really a part of who we are. And I think religious traditions that speak to that particularly are going to grow, particularly as people come out of this confusion.
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B
Yeah, it's interesting talking about the virtual aspect of it all. Critical thinking is so low and so such a rare trait in today's world. It's honestly not really even taught. What role do you think AI plays in that? Do you think young people are seeking out artificial intelligence to answer these questions as well? Again, I just think the critical thinking aspect, it. Honestly, it's scary to me. My little sister, she's still in high school, she's 17. She goes to, you know, your. Your run of the mill public school here in Tennessee. And she's very smart, she's very intellectual, but she never has to study, she never has homework. I'm scared for her to continue on into college and even post college, her career, whatever that may be, because she never really has to apply herself. Do you see? Do you think AI has like a role or, or a play in answering some of those existential questions?
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A
Young kids may have very diplomatically put rile because it's one of the great drivers of what could be, gosh, I don't know, the Loss of our very humanity. Not to sound too hyperbolic about it, but people are treating AI as if it is God. It's kind of annoying. Even in little Twitter debates and things, when people say grok, is this true?
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B
I blocked Grok on my X account. I blocked Grok. I'm so sick of people or that bot. I don't even fully understand AI, how it's able to do what it does in a matter of seconds. I blocked it. Sick of seeing that in my replies.
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Yes, yes, because there is a limited place for it. You say someone cites a study and you say grok, is this what the study says? And maybe much of the time Grok will give you an answer on no, actually it has these numbers in this place. But whenever you get to a question of real substance, Grok is not going to be helpful. You know, if you say, hey, Grok, should people be allowed to have abortions? You are bringing in so many philosophical and anthropological premises that are much dispute in society and always have been, that Grok loses its authority. Unless Grok really is God, which it's not. Grok is not even a human intelligence. And so the Bible talks about this. You know, the Bible warns against worshiping dumb idols lest we become like them. This is the problem. You become like what you worship. Cult and culture come from the same root word. And so when we ask Grok every single question that we have, that is an act of worship. We are treating Grok as we should treat God. Or at the very least, I don't know, wise people, people who are participating to some degree in the life of God. And so you see this especially for school kids. They lose their right footing, they're not oriented the right way, but then they've been deprived of generating the skills that allow us to flourish. These days, you cannot assign a paper in class because there's no reason to believe that anyone's actually going to write the paper. They might have Grok write the paper for them. Maybe they'll gussie it up a little bit. So you kind of have to go back to the blue book of in person writing. But why do your teachers assign you a paper in the first place? The teachers assign you a paper so that you will learn how to write. Because to write well is to think clearly, which is why it's so hard. As David McCullagh points out, if you graduate from middle school, much less high school, much less a university or a very prestigious university, without the ability to write, you cannot properly think. And this will destroy your freedom. I mean, I guess one inducement that I would have for young people who are relying on AI is, why are you getting an education? The purpose of an education of the liberal arts is so that you can make sense of your freedom, is to make a free person. Because freedom is two parts willing, the ability to will properly. If you're undisciplined, if you have addictions and vices, then you can't really be free. It's like Hunter Biden. Hunter Biden's super smart. He's very intelligent and well educated, but he never mastered his will. So he's a slave. He's a crackhead who goes and visits hookers. Right. So there's the willing part, and then that is predicated on knowledge. If you're ignorant, you can't be free either. This is why we don't let little children vote. The Democrats are trying to let little children vote, but generally we shouldn't. So to be a free person, you have to know things, and you have to exercise your intelligence and you have to discipline your will. And unfortunately, AI has the potential to deprive you of both of those things because you never develop the habits of discipline that allow you to live a flourishing life and to make sense of your freedom. And you never have to know anything. You never have to learn anything at all, because you can just say, hey, Grok, is this true? And so it's a major, major threat, and the conclusion of it will be people who are as dumb as the idol that they worship.
- [14:00]
B
Yeah, it's very true. And, yeah, a lot of the online discourse that you see, even from, I mean, let's call them MAGA influencers, you can always tell when they're using Grok or Chad GPT. There's that, like, hyphen in there. The chat.
- [14:17]
A
Can I sound off on this, Riley? Yes, it's the EM Dash, and I want to sound off on this because I love the EM dash. A lot of millennials especially, who are of a slightly literary bent, we love the EM Dash. And I remember it was actually Ben Shapiro's father who first introduced me to the EM dash, a beautiful tool of punctuation. Ten years ago, more than ten years ago. And now anytime you use the EM Dash, they think you got your writing from Grok, So they do that. That's really annoying. And then the other thing they do, the AI posts always end with, you know, this isn't an interview, it's an intervention. There's always this. This kind of parallelism. It's not this semicolon. It's that, or usually more EM dash. And it's, it's such cheap writing. So if you are, if you have read any books at all, you can identify the AI slop. You know, the AI writing. And you see it all throughout social media. And people are probably being paid to post it and they're, they're at least getting their payouts on X, for example. And it just, it's. You just have to ask yourself, hold on, what is this for? Twitter, as I understand it, is for owning the libs. That's its purpose. That is its telos of Twitter. And then after that, it's keeping up with the news or whatever, interacting with people. But now you're just getting slop that is being written by someone else. And when you respond to it, you are asking Grok to write slop for you, and it's just slop all the way down. And I say, at a certain point, are any human beings actually interacting? No.
- [15:46]
B
Yeah. No. I think the slogan should be make the M Dash great again. But I have. I found myself where I'm so unmotivated to even open the X app anymore, because you get on there and there's so much anger and rage and people hiding behind a screen. And as you've said, we've talked about very obviously AI generated talking points with the clear contradictories. It's either this or that. I so know what you're talking about. So I'm in full agreement there. In talking about Catholicism, I've got to mention the Pope, of course, he's been criticized, and his successor, for that matter, by many conservatives for seeming to lean left on certain issues. What's kind of the line between pastoral guidance and maybe overreach? Like, do you think the church's leadership has become too political, not political enough? What's kind of the balance here?
- [16:45]
A
No, it's not too political, though. I know that a lot of people, especially people who are not huge nerds of church history and who, you know, I understand why they might come to that conclusion, but it's totally misguided. First of all, as long as you don't have armies between the emperor and the papacy was literally warring against each other in, like, northern Italy. We are not even close to peak politicized papacy. Okay. I don't know if you guys are familiar with the Middle Ages, but you actually had popes and emperors going to war with each other. And the reason is there's always a tension between the temporal power and the spiritual authority. This goes back to the earliest days of The Church. And you see it really come out to the fore at the end of the 5th century. Pope Gelasius I in 494, writes a letter to the Byzantine emperor Anastasius. And in the letter he says, look, I'm going to say some stuff about politics. Sometimes there are two spheres here. You have power over the political realm. You know, you got to pass laws, enforce laws and arrest criminals and regulate the economy and all the rest. But I have an authority as well that I am tasked with to care for the spiritual needs of our people. And you can never totally divorce those. In part because the Pope is a shepherd. He leads a flock that lives in politics in time and space, and because the emperor has to have recourse to religion in order to pass laws and enforce laws, all of which require recourse to the moral law and ultimately spiritual authority. So there's gonna be a little tension there. There always has been. And Trump, I mean, he's the President of the United States, but practically speaking, he's the emperor. He's the emperor of the world. And so you're especially gonna see that come out between this Pope and this President. Now, as to whether or not the Pope is a leftist, he just isn't. I don't know how else to put it. I know he's speaking out to some degree about the Iran war, though it's worth pointing out he's never called the Iran War unjust. Some bishops have. Very liberal bishops have. The Pope has not. He's reserved his criticisms, to be pretty precise, hasn't really named Trump by name in those criticisms. On immigration, the Pope is not for open borders. He gave a speech just last year in which he said nations obviously should have borders. Nobody can seriously be for totally open borders. So even there, the Pope's view is relatively moderate. And then on almost all of the other issues, the Pope, this Pope, and really all Popes is ironically to the right of like every American politician, including the die hard right wing conservative people. The Pope thinks that abortion is wrong always. The Pope thinks, all Popes do, just by virtue of the office and by virtue of being Catholic. The Pope thinks that marriage is between a man and a woman and that same sex marriage is totally ridiculous. The Pope opposes contraception. The Pope obviously opposes transgenderism. The Pope does not believe that you can divorce the political order from the moral order. The Pope, you know, like basically any way you slice it, the Pope is more right wing. And the reason for that is, is that even the terms left and right come out of the French Revolution, when the national assembly was split and the people who supported the Church were on the right side of the assembly and the people who hated the Church were on the left side of the assembly. So, you know, the right is kind of by definition the religious group. And then on this Pope in particular, another little tidbit. He's an American Pope. He's the first one we've ever had, which creates this unique circumstance where we can check his voting record. He's an American citizen who's voted in elections until very, very recently. He was just elected Pope. And the Pope is a Republican. He's a registered Republican. So the idea that he's a hippie or a communist or even a centered Democrat is absurd and demonstrably false. We have our first registered Republican Pope. Let's take the win. Let's take the W, guys. I'm into it.
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B
Yeah. Now, on all of those issues that you just mentioned, our former president was on the other side of them, yet he claims to be a Catholic.
- [20:47]
A
And meanwhile, our former president, who, you know, Biden, made such a show about how Catholic he was, he was imprisoning Catholic grannies for opposing abortion. He was sending in jackbooted thugs to spy on Catholic churches when he was vice president in the Obama administration. They were suing nuns because the nuns didn't want to pay for abortions. You know, we were in such a sorry state. And now I think what you're seeing, especially with those young converts we were talking about at the top of the show, is you are seeing that the young people who are entering the church across religious traditions and especially with Catholicism, they are not entering for some boomer coded lib, worldly kind of religion. They want the real stuff. You know, they don't want Birkenstocks and acoustic guitars. They want the real heavy stuff. And I think what you're going to see is that Democrat, Biden esque kind of religion that's gonna fall by the wayside. Because the best thing that you could say about it is that it's lukewarm. And we know what our Lord says about that, which is lukewarm.
- [21:58]
B
That's right.
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A
You could also say that it's downright evil because they're supporting the mutilation of children, the slaughter of babies, the imprisonment of nuns. But most charitably, you'd say it's lukewarm. The young converts, they don't want lukewarm religion. They can get lukewarm. They can get the world any day of the week. The reason that they're Going to a different place on Sunday is to be elevated up to heaven.
- [22:20]
B
Okay, I want to tell you guys about something I actually think is really worth your time, especially if you have kids or honestly, if you just appreciate a story that makes you think a little bit deeper. There is a new film out right now called Animal Farm. Of course. This is an animated adaptation of the classic George Orwell story. Now, I know a lot of you probably read Animal Farm in school. I remember reading it my freshman year of high school in Coach Moran's class. He was the history teacher who coached the soccer team. But this version, it brings it to life, that story. It brings it to life in a way that's actually engaging. I actually found it to be pretty funny. And of course, the storyline itself is eye opening. What I like about this film, it wasn't just entertainment. It actually leaves you thinking. It sparks conversations. It's something that you could watch with your kids, especially if you have older kids. And it's something that you can actually talk about afterwards. I love this film. It was brought by Angel Studios. Of course, they have been fantastic across the board. So it's one of those projects that people who genuinely cared enough about it to make it happen, which I respect. Animal Farm, it is in theaters now. Tickets are still available. You can grow. Go grab yours@angel.com RG and let me know what you think after you watch it. Congressman Brandon Gill, he just had a fantastic line of questioning earlier this week. We have a clip. Let's play it really quick.
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A
You're an advocate for abortion, for abortion policy. What's your favorite type of abortion?
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B
I am an advocate for patients having access to the full realm of reproductive health care.
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A
But do you have a preferred method of abortion that you like?
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B
I do not.
- [24:00]
A
Let me read through a couple different methods and I want to get your take on how much you like these. The first type is called a suction abortion. This is when the cervix is dilated in a strong suction. 29 times the power of a household vacuum cleaner tears the baby's body apart and sucks it through the hose into a container. Do you prefer that method?
- [24:24]
B
I stand by my former testimony.
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A
That sounds kind of gross, doesn't it? Sounds pretty gruesome. Do you agree? It does to me.
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B
I stand by how I answered your question fully and accurately. He goes on to list many, many more ways of horrifically dismembering developing babies in the womb. But I thought this was so well done because it was so matter of fact. Like, what's your favorite kind of abortion? What do you think about this kind? Do you think this sounds gross? Thoughts on this? I think there's a really, really bright future for Brandon Gill. He's been fantastic his time in Congress thus far.
- [25:04]
A
Brandon Gill is absolutely killing it. The guy's a superstar. This question was brilliant just as a political tactic, because in politics you have to get real practical. So I love political philosophy and debates over ideology, but for it to have a political effect, you have to get real practical. And what this most closely reminded me of is my colleague, our pal Matt Walsh, did that movie what is a Woman? Which Marsha Blackburn from the Senate brought to fore when she was grilling the Supreme Court. Justice Ketanji Jackson said, what is a woman? What's your favorite abortion? Is a question like that? Because the woman that he's speaking to is an abortion advocate. She's a supporter of abortion. I'm a supporter of cigars. I love. If you said, what's your favorite cigar? I'd say it's a Mayflower cigar. What other cigars do you. Oh, I also like Oliva cigars. I also like Perdomo cigars. I also like this cigar and that cigar. I like cheesesteaks. You say, michael, what's your favorite? I'm a cheesesteak advocate. What's your favorite cheesesteak? I could tell you, well, I like Pat's a little more than Gino's, and I like this and that. In no case would I say, well, I don't want to answer that question. I don't want to talk about that. Well, if you're an abortion advocate, then you must like abortion. You support it. Okay, what's your favorite? And they won't answer. Especially in recent years, the abortion supporters have relied more than ever on euphemisms. They often don't even use the word abortion. They'll say it's women's health. It's reproductive choice. It's ever more abstract euphemisms.
- [26:32]
B
But even when referring to the baby, it's clump of a clump of cells.
- [26:37]
A
It's fetus. Baby, yes. They have to say fetus, which is a Latin word that just means baby. But they have to abstract it a little bit because most people don't speak Latin. So they have to abstract it a little bit. And so Brandon Gill makes it really, really easy. If you're an abortion advocate, what's your favorite kind of. Well, I don't have a favorite kind. Why don't you have a favorite kind? Because it's Evil. That's the inescapable conclusion that you have to get to. And it's why when the Democrats shifted away from their previously also incoherent stance, which was the Hillary Clinton stance, I want abortion to be safe, legal, and rare. Hillary Clinton is there admitting that abortion is wrong. And she's incoherently saying, we should have it anyway. But at least she was acknowledging the reality it's wrong. They shifted away from that. They shifted 10 years ago to shout your abortion. Be proud of your abortion. Have parades for your abortions. Abortion on demand at any moment. And so when they shifted away from that, it gave license to any normal person to say, okay, well, what's your favorite kind? What is it that you like about abortion? And they can't really answer that because it's wrong and it's manifestly wrong. So it's this beautiful question. I can't believe, really, that pro lifers haven't asked that before. But I want to hear this from every pro lifer out there on the street, every Republican politician. Ask the people, okay, you like abortion? I don't like abortion. I don't. Look, I guess you like chocolate, I like vanilla. You like abortion, I don't like abortion. So what's your favorite kind? The very fact that they can't answer tells you everything you have to know about the issue.
- [28:05]
B
Yeah. I would be curious if you approach your standard leftist who claims to be pro choice in the streets, if you ask them this, if they would feel any shame. Because I think oftentimes, at least in the very far, far left fringe, the kind that we see online, the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk's death, the people who are in the streets of San Francisco at these pride events, honestly, I don't even feel like they would have shame in answering. So to see this interaction where it kind of took her aback and she didn't really know how to answer, I certainly think is a step in the right direction and just giving all of us the transparency of understanding how to better communicate this. I think, especially going into 2026 and 2028, where abortion has historically been an issue that conservatives, they lose on, or quite simply, they just don't want to touch for fear of being on the wrong side of the issue, at least politically. So masterclass President Trump, of course, he's on his second term. It is underway. Are you fearful of the MAGA movement? What's that going to look like when President Trump doesn't run the third time? Maybe he does. He trolls all the time about it. But what does the MAGA movement look like post Trump? Like, do you think this is bigger than just one person? Does it risk fracturing? We've seen a lot of infighting on the right as of recently. I would say the past 8ish months at this point. What do you think that future looks like?
- [29:35]
A
MAGA is Trump, full stop. Now, this doesn't mean that MAGA ends after Trump leaves office, because most likely Trump will be the kingmaker in 2028. There's a little risk of that because of the Iran war. The Iran war could spiral out of control. This was one of the arguments against the strikes on Iran, is it could have cascading effects that overwhelm what is an incredible legacy thus far from President Trump. So there's some risk, but I would still put my money on Trump's the kingmaker. So he is maga and he'll pick who the nominee is. There is infighting, you're right. It is largely among the podcast class. And the reason for that, Look, I'm part of the podcast class too, but the reason for that is there's been a divergence of incentives. So in 2024, the incentives of the politicians and the podcasters were entirely aligned. We had the same enemy, we were appealing to the same audience. The more you invade against the left and tried to help Republicans win, the more clicks you got, the more views you got, and obviously for the politicians, the more likely they were to be elected. Now that Republicans are entirely in power, it's very difficult to get views and clicks when you're the one defending the government, because any government is going to be disappointing. It can't do everything. And so there, I think, you started to see the interests diverge. There were some real ideological disagreements, notably over the Iran war, but they were more pronounced in the podcast class than they were among ordinary voters. So there, I think you saw that schism break apart even more. I'm not that concerned about the right wing civil war because I think it's mostly a phenomenon of podcasters who have their own incentives. But I am concerned.
- [31:13]
B
Those incentives. You mean like monetary gain?
- [31:17]
A
Yeah, not just monetary gain. I mean, I don't mean. I don't mean to be casting too many aspersions of cynicism, but just attention. You know, a broadcaster thrives on attention. He has to get views and clicks, and you get money as a result of that too, but that's what he does. A politician has to go get votes. A podcaster has to go get clicks. And so when the podcaster's nominal party at least is in power. It's not very exciting to say, hey, guys, everything is going really well. Hey, look what the government just did. Don't you guys love the government? That doesn't really appeal. And so there is an incentive, especially as the podcaster. The new media organization has frayed from networks. Used to have cable networks like Fox, then you would have new media networks like the Daily Wire. We're kind of the last one, or we're one of the last ones, because increasingly the new media have just become independent creators. Now, this creates some other problems, because when you have a network, the network hosts have to get along. They have to see each other more frequently. They hash things out in person. When you have independent creators, all of a sudden it's a war of all against all. So every single person is your competition. And that. That creates incentives. Some people resist them, but it does create incentives for more sensational kind of commentary, more radical kind of commentary, gossip, detraction, and most importantly, opposition. The media always thrive when they're in opposition. So, you know, basically, the minute Trump won, that created a divergence. This was all compounded by the assassination of Charlie, because Charlie and I have an identical view of how to interact in politics that Charlie did. But it's an unpopular view, which is you need to keep the coalition together. Charlie was very, very good at bringing in people, many of whom hate each other, to get along and play nice and keep their eye on the prize. And he kept very toxic elements out, and he would sometimes shuffle the deck, but he was very, very good at that. I mean, that was his real guiding action. When he was assassinated by the left, some people tried to cope and say, well, you know, actually, we're going to be stronger than ever, and we're going to be. But I never really thought that would happen because very sadly, assassinations work. That's why people keep doing them. And so his loss has been immensely felt. Now, that said, we've talked about the podcast class. What about the actual political coalition, rank and file voters who might show up at the midterms, might not might support J.D. vance or whoever the nominee is in 2028. My chief concern there, maybe my sole concern, is the war in Iran. Because the war in Iran, it's sort of over right now, weirdly, within Trump's time scale, you know, within six weeks. But we're in this tenuous ceasefire. And the Strait of Hormuz remains closed because there's a blockade and then President Trump's double reverse Uno card blockade. So now you have a double blockade. Every day that goes by that 20% of the world's oil is not getting through there, not to mention lng, not to mention petrochemicals, not to mention fertilizer. Every day that goes by is going to cause consequences that will be paid by the global economy. So if this continues, and I think the Iranian regime is pretty durable, give the devils their due. They're pretty good at holding onto power. Every day that goes by is increasing. The odds of a global recession is already now we're finally starting to see the cost of oil really start to go up. Well over $100 a barrel. That is going to create economic and political pain that voters will be aware of at the ballot box. And that could throw all of the fraying disagreements in the actual political coalition, could really burst them into light. That's what we saw happen exactly at the end of the Bush administration because of the Iraq war. Nobody was talking about Social Security reform, nobody was talking about education reform. It was all about the war. And so I fear, look, Trump has a very good record on foreign policy. If I'm going to trust anyone on it, I'll trust him. But I do fear with an amazing record on immigration, on pro life, obviously on the judges, on the economy, he's got an astounding record on all of it. If the Iran war really goes south, it could overwhelm everything, you know, so that, I mean, obviously the White House wants to get out of this. There's no question about it. They don't want to be in Iran for 10 years. But how that is done is easier said than actually done.
- [35:44]
B
Look, I'm very self aware and I understand what I feel qualified to speak on and what I don't. But I will say in trying to really understand what was happening in Iran when those first initial strikes, your breakdown and analysis is the only one I watched in full to really help me understand. So I feel like a glimpse of that again.
- [36:04]
A
I appreciate it. Thank you.
- [36:06]
B
No, I'm so serious, too. Totally agree. Talking about Charlie Kirk. You should an event in Idaho with Turning Point this week. Looked like a fantastic crowd, fantastic reception. I want to ask you about Erica, kind of more specifically the treatment that she's received. There's been so much online commentary or some kind of grief policing, if you will, about how Erica Kirk has handled her public role and her mourning and her grieving of her late husband. Now, what's your take on how she's been treated by, I mean, really conservatives or those who hide under the cloak of conservatism and critics alike.
- [36:46]
A
She can do nothing right. If she smiles, that's wrong. She should be frowning. If she frowns, she needs to. To lighten up and smile more. If she wears white, it's too happy. If she wears black, it's too angry. If she speaks out publicly, she's out of her place. If she doesn't speak out, where is she? She needs to step up into her role. There's nothing that she can do that will satisfy some people. So I adore Erica Kirk. I think she's wonderful, obviously. Good enough for Charlie, good enough for me. And she's dealing with something that is the stuff of nightmares for virtually anybody. And on top of that, it's very much in the public square. And on top of that, because her husband was the most important political activist of his generation, she, whether she wanted it or not, is thrust into this political role. And so the knives come out, not just from the left to the right, all of the leftists celebrating, many of the leftists celebrating the murder of her husband, but then all the internal infighting and positioning and faction making that you see on the right. Also treating her terribly unfairly the whole time, compounded by the issue that we were just talking about, which is that the political media, increasingly divorced from real hardcore politics, thrives on sensationalism, detraction, gossip, slander, radicalism, all the rest. So all of a sudden, this grieving widow becomes good content, which I find totally despicable, and I refuse to engage in it. Even the other night, there was this clip. People were picking apart Erica, who was at the White House correspondents dinner, and she was crying when the shots rang out. I said, yeah, you think so? This woman is suffering from very severe trauma, and it's happened again. And, you know, she's got this fear that her kids could be orphaned and people even picking that apart. I didn't. And, you know, I understand prudential judgments vary, but I wouldn't even play the clip on the show. I just found it to be really awful. And so the things that we ought to do, in my view, are rather than, you know, directly answering whatever, any charge of anybody on Twitter or elsewhere, I think what we ought to do is one, pray for Erica and the family and tpusa, support her, you know, make clear this is a wonderful woman who is showing an immense amount of grace under a lot of fire, literal fire, and rhetorical fire, do what we can to support TPUSA and the mission. I was very honored that Erica invited me and Matt to go out and do that event the other night, it was a great event. Off of some of the social media sites, there were, I don't know, 1500 or whatever the stadium could pack. 1000 people were turned away at the door. They couldn't make it in. And. And these were great people who really wanted to do something positive for the country. And it reaffirmed my long held belief that there is a difference between Twitter and real life. I was worried that that difference was collapsing for a while, but I think it's real. And Charlie was so, so good at this that he understood that we have to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves, that prudence is the chief political virtue. And so, you know, it's very important not to give bad actors what they want. You know, when you. When you. I mean, I even saw it when I was at tpusa, all of these pseudonymous Twitter accounts that are, frankly, probably funded by foreign powers, all coming in, attacking Erica and tpa. See, you don't necessarily have to engage with all of that. You know, state the truth plainly. And then, most importantly, let's support her and let's support tpusa. Let's do our very best to carry on Charlie's legacy, knowing nobody can speak for him. You know, he's gone to his eternal reward and we have to carry on, but let's actually focus on what we're all trying to do, you know, and actually build something together rather than get in the fray with people who are just tearing things down.
- [40:43]
B
Okay, I want to talk to you guys about something that I know a lot of people quietly deal with. That is private student loan debt. If you have watched the Riley Gaines show before, which I hope you have, then you've heard me mention, why refi before. And honestly, what they're doing is incredible. If you are stuck with a private student loan that feels impossible, like your monthly payment is way higher than you can realistically afford, or maybe you've even fallen behind. Hear me when I say you are not alone and you are not out of options. Why refi work specifically with people in your same situation? They refinance private student loans that other places will not even touch, and they will actually build a payment plan based on your ability to pay. That means lower monthly payments, it means a low fixed interest rate, and it means a real path forward instead of just feeling stuck. And one of the biggest things, one of the best things, is that they don't base everything on your credit score. So if this is something that has been weighing on you, it doesn't have to be. Go to yrefi.com, that is y r e f y dot com, and tell them that Riley Gaines sent you. I actually agree with that take. And I remember when there's this clip of you that went around online where you're saying, look, those vultures, if you will. I don't know if that's a good word, but the vultures who are seemingly trying to capitalize on Charlie's death, just don't pay them any mind. Don't pay attention. Don't mention them by name. You just keep going. I actually kind of agree with that take. You got a lot of flack for it.
- [42:09]
A
I appreciate it. Yeah, I got flack because unfortunately, it's a criticism of, like, everybody, because it's obvious. It's obviously directly criticism of the people who are attacking Erica Kirk, but it's also a corrective, shall I say, to the people who are then spending every day criticizing the people who are criticizing. And then we get the people who are criticizing the criticism with the criticism, and it gets a lot of views. I mean, my ratings would be much higher even if I engaged in that. I know that for a fact. But I don't think it's the right thing to do. The first question in any political operation is, what does my opponent want me to do? Okay, I'm not going to do that. And I felt that we were in this position where people were. Everybody was making content and getting views and clicks and money off of something that's very bad. And, you know, when you breathe oxygen into these sorts of things, especially. I'll give you an example, when you're having a political debate over abortion. Someone says he wants abortion, someone says he doesn't want abortion. There is something substantive to debate there. What is a human person? When does human life begin? What are our obligations to each other? And so on. When someone is saying that they don't like a widow and they think she should wear a different eyeliner and they don't like the dress she wore, there's no way to argue with that. There's no. You're not actually debating anything. You know, you're just kind of getting into the fray of detraction and of slander and all the rest, there's no good outcome to that. And so I say, if someone is establishing a game, the rules of which are always bad for me and bad for the side that I want to win, I'm going to play a different game. And I caught a lot of flack for it, but I think I hate to say I told you so. I think that my thesis was proven right when I said that this constant debate isn't going to help in any way. I think that has been definitively proven correct. And so I'm glad to see that people now are trying a different approach. But, you know, if you want to support someone and you want to advance a, especially a political campaign, but even personal support, you have to have a good end result in mind and you have to have a reasonable success of getting there. This frankly brings us back to the conversation on President Trump and Iran. You know, one of the questions is what is the end goal and is there a reasonable probability of getting there? And one of the criteria of just war is if there's not a reasonable probability of success, the action's probably not just.
- [44:41]
B
That's right. Yeah. Well, I think you've been proven right if your priorities have maintained to do what is right and good and true and moral and just. But those aren't the priorities of everyone. I so appreciate you and your time. I guess kind of last thing for you. I wanted to ask you this. What's your like, political hot take that you could just get canceled for from the conservative side of the aisle?
- [45:10]
A
My political. Well, I have a few of those that where conservatives might want to throw me over board. Obergefell needs to be overruled. Gay marriage is totally fake. We need to ban IVF and surrogacy. These are all kind of my radical views that everyone used to agree with, but now they're kind of hot. But the one that won't get me canceled but is a hot take of mine. The alien stuff. The alien stuff is dumb at best and demonic at worst. Actually, I have some support here because the vice president said something very similar the other day and I entirely agree with him. The alien stuff, Guys, it is like worst, best case scenario. It's like jangling keys over here to distract us from actual issues. Worst case scenario, you're talking to demons. Like, either way, I don't want it. Enough of the alien stuff.
- [45:58]
B
I'm right there with you. It's. Yeah. I've never been very good at the conspiracy things that you can't really see or feel. So I'm right there with you. They're canceling us both. Then I appreciate you. This candle that's lighting beside you. Tell me about it.
- [46:14]
A
Riley, I'm so glad you brought that up. So this is one of the official Michael Knowles candles. Immediately after I leave you, I'm going to be going to Kentucky for the derby and great Mayflower cigar event. I have my Mayflower cigars here, and it occurred to me that I sell combustible objects. That's it. So we've got the candles for the ladies, the cigars for the guys. Maybe a little crossing in there. Not in a transgender way, but, you know, some people like a little bit of each. But I really appreciate it because my wife doubted me. My wife, sweet little Elisa, she said, why are you selling candles? I said, I'm a candle mogul, girl. This is. Come on. This is going to pay our mortgage. So anyway, if you want our candles, I think you can get them@thecandleclub.com or something like that. And if you like a better smell
- [46:57]
B
out of your candle, fantastic Mother's Day gift. Also, Father's Day is coming up. Birthing person Day. You can get a candle for your birthing person. Look at that. We appreciate you. Have fun in Kentucky. My. My people up there. So enjoy.
- [47:14]
A
Great to see you, Riley. Thank you for having me.
- [47:18]
B
Thank you guys for watching today's episode of the Riley Gaines Show. I hope you loved it, and if you did, make sure you subscribe. You can do that right here so you never miss an episode. We'll see you guys next week.
- [47:38]
A
I've coached the game. I've played the game. So when I break it down on don't at me, you're getting more than opinions. You're getting experience. We've put really dumb, racist people on the air. That's the ESPN model. Right now. The show is about winning, accountability, and truth, not the usual nonsensical soft takes. If you want real analysis from someone who's been there, join me. Search. Don't me on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, subscribe right now. It's free, it's portable, and most importantly, it's as real as it gets.